Page 58 of The Ruthless Fae King
He sighed. “I thought it was crazy too until I saw Kailani save a life doing it. My work is done, the wound is healed, but sheneedsblood.”
Put an outsider’s blood into her body? It was a wild idea that terrified me. But not more than the thought of losing her.
I looked down at her now ashen lips and went back to the memory of the time I first tasted them. I’d wanted to kiss her since the moment I laid eyes on her, and it did not disappoint. I wanted a thousand more kisses with her and I would not settle for less.
“Do whatever it takes,” I told him, then I fell to my knees, cradling her head in my lap. “Give her mine,” I begged him. “Please. Whatever she needs.”
“Is her mother here?” Raife asked suddenly, peering around.
Her mother? So that she could say goodbye to her daughter? I leaned forward and kissed Madelynn’s head. “No. I sent her lady-in-waiting to fetch her mother and sister before I kill her father for treason,” I growled.
Raife cleared his throat as if he didn’t like the idea of that. I didn’t care. He sold her to someone else after she’d been promised to me. I would punish him.
“I was asking because it would be best to have someone she shares blood with. Do you have a staff member from Fall Court?”
My face fell, my stomach tightening into knots, and I looked up into my friend’s eyes. “I do not hire staff outside of Winter Court.”
That admission settled over us, and I didn’t have the heart to ask him if Madelynn would die if we could not get Fall Court blood into her.
Just as I was wondering how long it would take one of my messengers to kidnap a Fall Court fae and bring them to me, Kailani arrived.
The half human, half elvin queen ran through my front door panting. She held a black satchel and her blond hair with a streak of brown in front was blown around her shoulders.
“I’m here. Talk to me,” she said as she rushed forward and opened the satchel, pulling out tubes and a needle.
“She was mortally injured,” Raife told her as her gaze took in the dire position Madelynn was in. “Lucien froze the wound which saved her until she could reach me, but she lost a lot of blood. I have closed the opening but her heart is failing.”
Kailani was wearing a pretty silk purple dress and yet she had no qualms about kneeling in the blood puddle at Madelynn’s side and pressing two fingers to the side of her neck. “Do we have a next of kin nearby?” She hadn’t looked at me yet, which was fine by me. She’d gone into healer mode and I’d rather she be focused on Madelynn. The last time I saw her I had hit on her and tried to kill Raife, so I would understand if she were even a little mad at me.
“No,” Raife said. “And Lucien has no Fall Court staff.”
Kailani put the needle into Madelynn’s arm and then looked up at me. “I have no idea what this will do to her powers, but if you want her to live, give me your arm.”
Her words shocked me. Her powers might be affected? Did I care about that right now?No. But she might. Still, if she were alive to yell at me for messing up her powers, I didn’t care. I would pay all of the gold in my vault to be yelled at by her again.
Without question, I extended my arm and Raife placed a hand on his wife’s lower back. “Are you sure this will not harm Lucien’s power?”
She shrugged. “The average body has more than enough blood to spare. He will grow his back while he sleeps. He might be weak in power for a day or two, but that’s it… I think.”
Weak?I’d never been weak in my life. I hated to even think of it. But Madelynn was worth it.
“Just save her. Please,” I begged. I would grovel if needed, but Kailani didn’t require it. She simply wiped a wet cotton ball across my arm and then poked a needle into it.
I flinched, not really at the pain but at the sight of my red lifeblood leaving my body and filling the tube she’d connected to it. It streamed down to where Madelynn lay on the floor and went into her arm.
“This is wild. Are you sure this will work?” I’d never seen something like this before in my life, and I’d seen a lot of healings growing up.
Kailani nodded. “We don’t have healers in Nightfall where I grew up. Humans have to use other things like inventions and medicines to survive. This is one of them. When a person loses too much blood, it can be donated from another person.” She looked worried, her face hiding something.
“Then why do you look so concerned?” I asked her.
She chewed at her lip. “We don’t know why yet but some people have reactions to blood donations.”
I stiffened. “What kind of reactions?”
She took a shaky breath. “I’ve never heard of someone dying but… in Madelynn’s case it wouldn’t be good since she’s already so weak.”
All the hope I’d had for her to make it out of this was quashed in that moment.
